


Life After the Squips: Senior Year

by HesitantlyHipsterAlien



Series: Life After The Squips [1]
Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: ALL THE GAY, Angst, F/F, Gay, I'm trying and this will probably suck and I'm so sorry please don't hate me, Jake is in a wheelchair, M/M, Mentions of Mental Illness, Not all sad though, Pining, Porn, Promise, Senior year, Set after the squipcident, Weed, somewhat AU, squip squad
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-26
Updated: 2017-09-07
Packaged: 2018-11-19 10:03:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11311086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HesitantlyHipsterAlien/pseuds/HesitantlyHipsterAlien
Summary: Most of the gang has not spoken since the end of junior year.Michael has barely left his basement. Jeremy has been spending too much time at home. Christine immersed herself in theatre camp. Jenna started working on a new project. Rich spent every day with Jake. And Brooke and Chloe went out of state with Chloe's family for the summer.Now that senior year is on the approach, the gang must decide where their relationships stand and how the last year of their high school career is going to go.





	1. Summer's End Part One

Jenna Rolan's last week of summer is spent in her aunt's home in Chicago, sitting in the room she was given, her laptop poised on the bed and pages of notes scattered unceremoniously around her.

Being the gossip queen of high school, she has more knowledge than anyone else of what the fuck happened junior year, and has spent her entire summer looking into all of her documentation and figuring out just when the squips got to the school, who got changed first, and how many people besides the one's she knows of- herself, Jeremy, Rich, Jake, Christine, Chloe, and Brooke- were effected by those bitchy super computers. Through all her investigating and usage of her gossip prowess, she has figured out some very important things.

A) Rich was squipped first.

B) Rich squipped Jeremy.

C) Jeremy squipped a whole bunch of people.

And D) Michael was never squipped.

The problem with knowledge like this is that now Jenna is left unsure of what to do. She could turn to authorities, but how the hell does one tell a cop that their friend roofied the whole school with evil super computers that left several of the kids traumatized after drinking Mountain Dew Code Red to shut them down. Even Jenna knew that sounded totally crazy. She'd be lucky if they didn't drug test her. 

So what to do? Get everyone to turn on Rich and Jeremy because if it weren't for them, no one would have been squipped? Maybe write a book and make a total killing off it? Or maybe...

Smiling to herself, Jenna knows just what to do. Pushing her glasses back up on her face, she hunches back over her computer and begins typing furiously.

<...>

"Jake?" Rich calls, squinting into the blackness of the Dillinger's garage. "Your mom said you were in here, why is it so dark?"

"Shut the door," Jake calls back, tone amused. "I have to show you something. Its awesome, I promise." 

Shutting the door carefully, Rich stands in the dark, his heart thudding. 

He's not sure what he expects but twin spirals of flashing, brightly colored lights filling the room definitely isn't it. The lights approach as Jake wheels around him in a circle, speaking excitedly. "Mom and dad got my chair tricked out with LEDs for when we go on night walks together! Isn't it cool?"

Rich smiles softly. Jake may be a dork, but he's an incredibly sweet one and the pure excitement in his voice is contagious. "It's badass, dude. You look like a transformer."

Jake chuckles, wheeling past Rich to the wall to turn the lights on. Rich winces at the sudden brightness, blinking a few times as Jake rolls back over. Studying Rich, Jake frowns.

The shorter male is shaky, dark circles under his eyes saying he probably didn't sleep again last night, and he's still in his pjs- which happen to be a black tank top and Deadpool pants- for the third day in a row this week. It looks like the expected end of summer bad spell is hitting hard.

Rich has been at Jake's pretty much every day this summer. The first couple weeks, they didn't talk about why Rich was exhausted all the time, or why certain things made him upset now. But then came the first night Rich slept over. He couldn't sleep and Jake asked him why and they spent the whole night just talking about how Rich blamed himself for everyone getting squipped and all the bad shit that happened afterwards and how he'd been having nightmares about the night of the fire. Turned out Rich had been dealing with a lot of shit all by himself.

Jake changed that.

"Hey," He says, taking Rich's hand. "Wanna go inside and watch a movie? Or we can just talk about stuff? Or play Mariokart?"

Rich squeezes Jake's hand, stifling a yawn. "Movie sounds good. Maybe talking later." 

Jake nods, leading the other male inside. Their end of summer is to be spent relaxing before the stress of the upcoming school year.


	2. Summer's End Part Two

Basking beneath the sky's warm rays, eyes protected with brand new designer shades, Chloe has spent the last three hours working on a perfect sun kissed tan. She wants to start her senior year by proving to everyone that she had a better summer than they did- why wouldn't she, she spent most of it at her family's home in the Hamptons- and a perfect tan is the only thing missing. 

The waves lapping the shore nearby give this day a perfect ambience, and from a few houses down, beach party music can be heard somewhat subtly. But, it is rather the absence of a certain sound that has Chloe feeling suspicious.

Where is-

Suddenly, a shadow crosses between Chloe and the sun, cool hands landing on her forearms, and blonde curls that smell of seasalt cascade down beside the left side of Chloe's face. Brooke slowly leans down to press a kiss to the brunette's lip, her green shorts and white floral bikini top dripping all over the other girl. When she pulls away, Chloe grins, freeing one arm to take off her sunglasses.

"Hi," she breathes. Brooke grins. She's still wearing the choker Chloe got her with the shark tooth on it, something Chloe thought could build on her beach babe aesthetic. Not that she needed it. Brooke could look adorable in basically anything.

"Hi," Brooke is still grinning, her blue eyes bright. "You said you were gonna come swimming soon like two hours ago?"

"And you decided you're done waiting?" Chloe grins back, shifting to sit up some so that their faces are only inches apart. Brooke's eyes meet hers, looking as blue as the waves crashing behind them. That look is enough to take Chloe's breath away.

"Yup," Brooke says.

Chloe smirks, sliding a hand into Brooke's soaked curls as she places her lips over the other girl's. For a moment, all sound fades away, and the only thing Chloe can hear is the small triumphant giggle that escapes Brooke's lips inbetween kisses. When they pull away, Brooke stands first, offering a hand down to Chloe.

"You think my parents are sick of us yet?" Chloe says as Brooke pulls her to her feet, dropping her sun glasses on the beach towel.

"I think they were sick of us the minute we got in the car," The blonde replies, grinning. "How long d'you think it'll take before the whole school is sick of us?"

"Dunno," Chloe says, taking the other girl's hand as they stroll back towards the rolling waves. As they stop at the edge, she twirls Brooke to face her, giving her best 'old lame romance movie' voice as she adds: "But frankly, Scarlet, I don't fucking care." 

Brooke giggles again before pulling Chloe off balance and in for a kiss, sending them both sprawling into the waves.

<...>

As Chipmunk cabin gleefully dances across stage, their ten to twelve year old voices belting out the notes to We Go Together, Christine stands off to one side, beaming brightly. In the past, her summer's had been spent at this camp performing and making new friends. But this year, since she and three of her camp friends were all high school seniors now, they got promoted to Camp Counselors, and paid to spend a summer teaching each of their individual cabins of twenty to thirty campers a musical of their choice.

"Christine! That was incredible!" Sami, she lead Rabbit cabin, and taught the seven to nine year olds Peter Pan, gushes. She's standing with Emmett. He lead Bear cabin, and because he had thirteen to fifteen year olds, they took on Hairspray.

"Of course it was incredible," Shannon, head of Fox cabin, the sixteen to eighteen year olds who'd performed Rent last night, says. "Christine is incredible and therefore everything she does is incredible."

Christine beams, running a hand through her hair, too flattered to actually respond to her friends. Originally, after what happened last year with the squips, she expected to feel so... just... broken and wrong... That computer had said some really nasty things about a lot of the things Christine did. But, after Michael saved them all, and that stupid computer was shut down, Christine was actually able to work past a lot of what it had said. She figured it helped that she liked who she was as a person to begin with. That having that made it easier for her to debunk all the crap the squip told her.

Though it did make her wonder... what about the people who maybe hadn't liked themselves before the squip? Rich, Jeremy... people like them who'd been so unhappy before it, how were they handling now? Were they okay?

And what about Michael? What must it have been like to be the only person not squipped?

Shannon's arm around her shoulder's pulls Christine from her reverie. She's apparently being taken back to the counselor's hall for something, though what that thing is she can't be entirely sure as she hasn't been listening. Still, she follows obediently, because its Shannon, and she knows Shannon cares to much about her to bring her into anything dangerous.


	3. Summer's End Part Three

Staring numbly at the scene on his Macbook Pro's dirty, cracked screen, Jeremy sighs. The squip fucking broke him. Though he's no longer at the point where computers freak him out so badly that he threw his the first time a Facebook notification popped up; and he's also no longer at the point where just hovering over his secret folders made him flinch in preparation for the shock to his spine; he is still, however, broken in his mind.

Porn does nothing for him anymore.

He's tried every legal kind out there, even read some smut fics for fandoms he knew the characters from. Nothing. Not even a partial boner. Jeremy has reached a new level of sexually frustrated, a feat he wasn't sure was possible.

Sighing once more, Jeremy closes the Macbook. He hasn't checked his social media in over a month, because everyone involved in the Squipcident is pretending it never happened and that drives him nuts. And, the only person he wants to talk to has not only been ignoring Facebook messages, but also tweets, texts, and even fucking eMails (though in defense of the last one, Jeremy isn't actually sure Michael checks his eMail). And he doesn't usually play PC games, so that really ends his attempts at laptop based entertainment.

His parents are worried, he knows. He went from being this social kid and going to parties and having fun to never leaving the house. He even cleaned his room, he just got that bored. His dad has tried to get him to go visit his friends, but, as far as Jeremy knows, none of them want anything to do with them.

If this summer is any evidence, senior year is going to suck.

<...>

A thick haze of pot smoke fills the basement, making Michael grateful that his house is old enough that a smoke detector never did manage to make it down stairs. The words 'Apocalypse of the Damned' flash across the screen. As he selects the proper save, the words 'Level Nine: The Cafetorium' cross the screen. He's spent all summer playing this damn level and getting stoned. Its the easiest way to deal with his frustrations at his ex-player two.

Squipped or not, Jeremy really hurt him over the last year. First with the 'turning-the-visual-blocking-back-on' thing, then with the calling Michael a loser, then with the leaving Michael to have the roughest anxiety attack he'd had in months alone, in Rich's bathroom, then with the fact Michael almost got left in the house during the fire- not really Jeremy's fault, but still traumatic, and also the reason for the knocking, Michael had learned- and Michael wasn't sure whether it was okay to be angry at Jeremy or not.

On top of that, there was still the complication of Michael's feelings for Jeremy.

Michael had been in love with his best friend since way before Rich was popular. Since before Jenna was a gossip queen. Since before Christine had a part in every play. And junior year, had things gone poorly with Christine, Michael had planned to tell Jeremy.

And the Jeremy, under the order of the Squip, had broken Michael's heart. So, Michael didn't feel like bringing himself to talk to Jeremy- or anyone from school, for that matter- just yet.

Going through the motions of dodging zombies and hacking them apart, lacking the enthusiasm he once had for it, Michael's lets his thoughts wander the same path the have multiple times this summer. Who the fuck came up with the Squips and how weren't they in jail yet? Who's idea was it to make a super computer that verbally abuses you into becoming a whole different person? And why would anyone want that? Michael knew he had enough of his own insecurities- sometimes, he wasn't so confident about the 'baby fat' he still carried, as one of the popular girls so kindly called it, sometimes he was embarassed about his car, sometimes he was ashamed of the fact that he basically lived alone, as his parents weren't usually around- he didn't need some bitchy computer chip telling him everything that was wrong about him. Honestly, whoever had come up with this shit should be shot.

Speaking of shot, pressing B, he fired his last bullet into an approaching zombie, back out through a doorway. Suddenly, words crossed the screen.

'Level Ten: The Western Hall.'


End file.
